The last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials – the trials of a group of top Nazi war criminals – U.S. attorney Ben Ferencz died Saturday at the age of 103, his son told NBC News.
Ferencz was the last living prosecutor of the trials that marked the first time in history that serial killers were prosecuted for war crimes. They convicted 22 Nazi death squad commanders in the aftermath of World War II.
He was only 27 years old at the time and in his later career played a crucial role in obtaining compensation for Holocaust survivors and the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
A tireless advocate of human rights, he also wrote nine books and dozens of articles, delivered countless speeches and traveled the world into his 90s spreading his motto of »law, not war.»
The New York lawyer, who turned 103 on March 11, was educated at Harvard and came from a family of Hungarian Jews.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)